Wednesday, March 14, 2012

It
all started with a walk. I walked about half a mile down the street with a friend from Japan who needed to experience a Wahoo’s burrito and
American Starbucks. My left heel was on fire. Well, this is strange, I thought.
I’d jogged maybe nine miles the day before, done a one-hour interval workout on
my trainer and jogged a few miles down the beach that morning. Those are not
weird workouts. But here I was, with my foot on fire, wondering what the hell
went wrong.

Oh
yeah, there was also the Birkie, a 54-kilometer (that’s 33.5 miles,
Americanos!) cross-country ski race held annually in Wisconsin. I had written about it for Outside, and decided I couldn’t give up the opportunity to see real-life
people who talk like Frances McDormand in Fargo. I had never ever cross-country
skied before, nor had I worked out much in the last five months. A fitness-crushing
bout with mono (diagnosed post-mono) made it almost impossible for me to
move for more than 20 minutes without being overcome by sleepiness. And that’s
when I could actually get out of bed.

Maybe
two weeks before the Birkie, I started feeling better. I’d been running through
the mono anyway, because I had no idea what was going on, only that I didn’t
like it or agree with my body’s decision to play Sleeping Beauty. The week
before the Birkie, I covered a nice hilly 2 hour 45 minute loop in the Santa
Monica mountains. I declared myself good enough for America’s biggest XC ski
race. I was an idiot.

Coachubby and I hoped the Birkie
would take us 6 hours. After the first 5K, we realized we were off. We crossed
the finish line of the hilly course, after several faceplants, in 7 hours and
20 minutes. (Story to come.)

Besides
a mildly sprained wrist that I’ll attribute to faceplant #2, I seemed to make
it out of the event unscathed. But the stress from 7.5 hours of cross country
skiing on flat feet took its toll on my Achilles tendons, making them ticking
time bombs ready to explode under any additional pressure. The bike
interval/beach jog did them in.

Now
it’s less than five weeks before the Boston Marathon, an event I qualified for
at the Rock N Roll San Diego marathon last June. I’d hoped I could best my
qualifying time of 3:33 by at least a minute. (I’d have hoped for more, but the
mono made me scale back expectations long ago.) Now I just hope I can run by
then.

After
an entirely injury free build up to Ultraman Canada last year (story still to come. Sorry!), and a subsequently
injury-free race (the only thing that got injured, apparently, was my immune
system), it’s a frustrating place to be. After more than a decade of competing
in sports, I look back and realize that very often, I am still an idiot. I like
to go long and hard, and have a difficult time telling when my body is telling
me not to because it’s literally going to break, or when it’s telling me not to
because it’s being a wuss.

So
if you see me spinning slowly down LA’s flat Strand, please don’t challenge me
to a race, because my mind will tear my Achilles’ apart to hang onto your wheel.
Especially if we’re on a Strava segment.